1905. | MAMMALS FROM PERSIA AND ARMENIA. 525 
Type :— 
CALOMYSCUS BAILWARDI. 
A beautiful Gerbille-coloured, long-eared, tufted-tailed mouse 
of about the size of Mus musculus. 
Fur soft and fine, hairs of back about 7 mm. in length. 
General colour above a beautiful “pinkish buff,” darkened on 
the back by the tips of the hairs being black, clear and rich along 
the flanks and down the outer sides of the legs to the ankles. 
Whole of under surface pure sharply contrasted white, which 
ascends rather high up on the cheeks, nearly to the eyes, covers 
the whole of the fore limbs, ascending almost to the shoulder, and 
the inner side of the hind limbs. Head buffy, slightly paler than 
back. Ears very large, practically naked, pale brown, their few 
fine scattered hairs white; a small white patch above the base of 
their anterior margin. Upper surface of hands and feet pure 
white. Fifth hind toe long, reaching to the middle of the 
terminal phalanx of the fourth. Tail long, well haired, the hairs 
lengthening terminally into a pencil; pure white below, above 
whitish proximally, darkening terminally to blackish. 
Skull with the nasal region long and narrow. Interorbital 
space broad, smooth, slightly convex, its edges scarcely marked, 
no ridges developed on the parietals. Anterior plate of zygomata 
not projected forwards. Palatal foramina ending half their own 
length in front of the molars. 
Dimensions of the type (measured in the flesh) :— 
Head and body 78 mm.; tail 87 ; hind foot 20°5; ear 21:5. 
Skull—greatest length 26 ; basilar length 19°2; greatest breadth 
13°8: nasals 10:1 x 3:2; interorbital breadth 4:4; brain-case 
breadth 12; interparietal 3:1 x 87; palatilar length 10°5; 
diastema 69; palatal foramina 4°5 x 1:8; length of upper molar 
series 3°3. 
Hab. and Type as above. 
“Trapped among barren rocks on mountain-side above the 
Mala-i-Mir marsh.”—A. B. W. 
The discovery of this beautiful animal is of extreme interest, as 
it belongs to a group hitherto believed to be exclusively American 
and Malagasy, with the exception of Cricetus and Mystromys. 
This group of biserial-toothed Muride is apparently a very 
primitive one *, and was no doubt spread widely over the Old 
World as well as the New before the triserial Murine were 
developed and beat it in the struggle for existence throughout the 
Eastern Hemisphere. But they penetrated neither to Madagascar 
nor America, in which countries the Muride are all of the 
biserial group. Now in Calomyscus we have another Cricetine 
% Several fossil members of this group, Eocene and Miocene, are known, and are 
all referred by paleontologists to Cricetodon Lartet, but if still existing they would 
apparently represent quite a number of what mammalogists now call genera. I am 
indebted to Dr. Forsyth Major for showing me a series of representative specimens 
of the fossil forms. 
